A crowd of more than 1,000 attended the anti-fracking protest held in the capital of New York state, organized during the State of the State address. The governor, though, chose not to mention the issue of fracking in his speech.

Activists were protesting in order to urge the governor of New
York, Andrew Cuomo, to expand the moratorium on fracking - which
has been in place since 2008 - and ban the controversial
gas-drilling practice altogether.

Protesters held signs ‘Don’t frack with our future’, and ‘We love
frack-free NY’ as they took over the Empire State Plaza, where
the State of the State address was delivered on Wednesday.

“Air contamination, high levels of radiation,
earthquakes,” a man in the crowd enumerated to RT’s Marina
Portnaya what made him believe that fracking was wrong. “The
bottom line is incredibly dirty form of extreme energy extraction
that cannot have any place in New York state.”

“This is life or death, you know,” another protester
said. “Water is non-renewable. If we bring this fracking to
upstate New York, we are going to ruin our farmland,” a
woman said.

Communications Director for Frack Action, John Armstrong, who was
at the protest said people were becoming more aware of the
dangers associated with fracking.

"I think it sends a loud message that this is something New
Yorkers have learned about, they've listened to the experts, they
care about it deeply. They've come back year after year to take
this message to the governor,” Armstrong told News 10.

The governor is yet to make a decision on the topic, but did not
make any reference to fracking during his speech.

In December Cuomo promised that he would make a decision, whether
or not New York state should permit hydraulic fracturing for
natural gas, by Election Day next year.

"It's one of the most important decisions I think we will
make as a government with far-reaching consequences," Cuomo
said at a news-conference last month. "It's more important to
be right than fast."

The New York state governor has been criticized for not having
come up with a final decision on fracking by both opponents and
supporters of the practice. The latter believe heating prices
could have been smaller in the state, currently enduring
extremely low temperatures, if there was no moratorium on
fracking.

“There’s no reason why New York cannot be enjoying or
benefitting from the economic advantages that the state of
Pennsylvania is reaping as a result of the safe, responsible
production of natural gas,” Thomas Pyle, president of the
Institute for Energy Research said, as cited by The Washington
Free Beacon.

Meanwhile Pennsylvania, mentioned by fracking supporters, has
seen more than 100 cases of confirmed pollution or water
contamination within the last five years, according to a recent
Associated Press report,
which reviewed fracking complaints in four US states -
Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, and West Virginia.

There might have been even more complaints, if oil and gas
companies hadn’t been careful enough to make landowners sign the
so-called non-disclosure agreements, believes renewable energy
activist and Director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, Tyson
Slocum.

“Once the oil and natural gas companies confront landowners
they typically require them to sign what’s known as
non-disclosure agreements. The oil company will say “Listen,
we’ll give you 10 or 20 thousand dollars in cash, we’ll give you
a year’s supply of drinking water, all you have to do is sign
this non-disclosure agreement that forbids you from ever
mentioning this publicly,” Slocum told RT.

The highly controversial practice of fracking requires companies
to pump chemicals into the ground to break apart rock and free
the gas. Water can then return to the surface containing salt,
heavy metals and radiation, as well as causing air pollution.